We haven't died yet.....

Hey, see that white line that almost looks like a hair on my cheek? and then that little drip on my chin. THAT'S SNOT! Snot from my adorable-yet-also-affectionate daughter who decided to give me a kiss after sneezing. 

The month of March was the month of sickness. From what I can tell sickness entered our household almost as soon as my sister's family left our home after they visited for spring break at the beginning of March. That may sound like I'm blaming it on them but I'm not, if anything,  the fact that the sickness did not hit earlier was directly related to how hard I prayed and pleaded with God to "not ruin their visit with sickness"....clearly I should have been much more specific, because as I said, the sickness hit after they left and it DID NOT LEAVE.

If I was savvy with charts and grafts. I'd show you the ebb and flow of the sickness as it surged through our family, but since I am not. I'll just tell you the highlights. I wished for death around the 27th of March.  Tabitha got EVEN SICKER ( even though I didn't think that was possible) on the 29th and Ransom went to the ER on 5th of April.
And then you might also think, oh hey, noticed Brett wasn't mentioned there! He must have been saved from the misery. Well, you'd only be partly right. He spent two of those weeks working EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. without any sign of a weekend or anything. Just night after night, then he'd come home, parent a little bit, sleep for a few hours, get up, parent again and then head off to work. He didn't see the Real World until this past Sunday.

Several people have been like, "Hey, are you guys doing better?" and I basically attack the nearest piece of wood with some sever knocking when I say, " I think so!"  because I had proclaimed with all sorts of vigor and false optimism that we were "better" last week and I spent Saturday and Sunday at various medical facilities, so pardon me if I don't get excited about the use of only half a box of kleenex today as opposed to a full box yesterday.

In the midst of all this horridness I have been thinking a lot though and one thing I know for sure. We are SO blessed. Both of my kids have been sick with common illnesses. Things that can be easily explained ( even though Tabitha was misdiagnosed twice. thanks for that). I was sick with a common illness mixed with a ( un)healthy dose of lack of sleep- things that were also eventually cured.

 We have "free" healthy care. Thanks to the military all the horrible doctor visits and potentially dangerous diagnosis and misperscribing was at the very least all free. No doctors bills for us! And that may sound tongue and cheek ( as in, we definitely got what we paid for) but I know plenty of my readers can identify with bad medical care and yet they've also spent months paying it off!

Sometimes it really is important to count your blessings in the midst of minor suffering and so today I salute the single moms, the deployment-single parents, the parents of kids suffering from life threatening illness, those buried under a mountain of medical bills and those fighting hard to stay afloat due to sickness of any kind. I acknowledge that while you may be able to find little blessings and silver linings in your days ( which, by the way, rock on for that attitude!) I also know that things are TOUGH and please know that you are not alone.

Yet He Himself bore our sicknesses, and He carried our pains....